Crystal had agreed to several unfair terms, all for the sake of returning safely from Jetroina.
Everyone fell into silence after watching the video. No one would have thought that Crystal was a woman with such easy virtue. It was horrendous!
It was a long silence, and it was so quiet in the hall that one could hear a pin drop. Suddenly, Crystal let out a scream before she picked up the sound system that Wendy had just hit her with. Then, she lifted it over her head and hurled it at the screen.
With a loud crash, several cracks appeared on the screen. But the footage had been imprinted on everyone’s memory. Crystal slumped to the ground, and her spirit was in shambles.
Benjamin walked up to Crystal, and then he crouched down to be at eye level with her. The adoration he had for her was gone. “I’ve always thought of you as a goddess. I thought you were an untouchable woman, only to be admired from afar. It turns out that you’re nothing but a promiscuous woman.”
“No… no… hear me out, Benjamin. Don’t turn your back on me too. I had no choice. Your brother made me do it. If he had not threatened to expose my secrets about my plagiarized paintings, I wouldn’t have helped him. Don’t look at me like that, please…” Crystal sobbed as she reached out for his hand.
Benjamin twisted her hand and tossed it aside. Then, he wiped his hand on a tissue and said, “You’re a filthy woman.”
It was as though he had landed a sucker punch on Crystal. She stared at him in disbelief and said, “This is unlike you, Benjamin. Do you really believe all that? Don’t you know me as a person? Benjamin…”
“I’ve always respected you. And I respected your decision when you told me that you love Lyle. You could have been mine. After you got drunk and slept in my arms, I couldn’t bear to touch you because I wanted you to be happy with Lyle. Come to think of it, I made a wise choice that night. I would have been utterly disgusted if I had sex with a woman who slept around with countless men.”
“Benjamin… you can’t treat me like this…” Suddenly, Crystal stood up and glared at me. She gritted her teeth and snarled, “Yvonne, you planned this, didn’t you? I’ll make you pay for this. I’m going to kill you.”
As soon as she said that, she rushed down from the stage and rushed towards me. I quickly got up from my seat and stared at her cautiously. Just then, Christopher kicked the chair in front of him away from the table. Crystal was running so fast that she couldn’t stop herself in time and collided with the chair. She landed heavily on the ground and burst into tears.
This was my first time seeing Crystal in such distress and misery. For a moment there, I recalled the first time Crystal came to our house. I remembered how she hid behind Natalie as she craned her neck to look at me and said to Natalie, “Yvonne is so beautiful. She’s just like a princess.”
At that time, I had an instant liking for this cousin of mine. Oh, how things have changed. Despite all that, I had no vindictive feeling. There was nothing but calmness in the depths of my heart. Eventually, I broke out of that and began to live a carefree life. And the cousin who adored me back in those years had turned into someone else.
At that moment, Sharon, with the help of Josephine, made her way onto the stage slowly. She said firmly into the microphone, “I’m sorry, everyone. But the wedding is canceled. We can’t have someone like that marry into the Smith family.”
The grand wedding had turned into a humiliating event. It would be the talk of the town for a very long time. Crystal had disguised herself as a perfect woman all too well. Other than Monica, no one else in Avenport was as popular and highly praised as Crystal.
The crowd gradually dispersed and soon, there were only a few people left in the hall.
“Grandma, you orchestrated this today, didn’t you? You’ve known all along. Why didn’t you tell me?”
